The Darkest Craving. Gena Showalter

done it right.”

      Kane ignored him.

      “What’s so important about this girl, anyway? I mean, really.”

      Again silence.

      “Does she have a magic pu—”

      Kane spun around and punched him in the jaw. “Enough!” Fury bubbled in his blood, molten, acidic—poisonous. “Don’t go there. Don’t ever go there. Not with her.”

      William rubbed the wound. “So why are we hunting her?” he asked as if Kane hadn’t just resorted to violence.

      Could nothing shut the warrior up? Kane jolted back into motion. “She says I owe her.” And it was true … if not the full truth.

      “And you always pay your debts? What kind of craziness is that?”

      “Some people would say it’s honorable.” Maybe the only honor Kane had left.

      “Some people are stupid.”

      “And there’s the number-one reason I’ll never do anything for you.”

      “Because you’re stupid like everyone else? That’s being a little harsh on yourself, don’t you think? I mean, sure, if you ever entertained a bright idea I’d have to say it was beginners’ luck, but you have your moments.”

      I can act like I’m a calm, rational being. Kane stalked past a wall of green and entered a clearing. He stopped and breathed deeply. The air was clean here. Pure and untouched. Also kind of annoying. He wanted to catch a hint of rosemary, mint and maybe even smoke, indicating Tinker Bell was still here and warming herself in front of a fire.

      He could swoop in and grab her. She would probably fight him, but he wasn’t worried. She lacked skill. And strength. Was probably fatigued. But she’s got heart, he thought, a now familiar ache lancing through his chest.

      “Well?” William prompted.

      “We set up camp.” Not because they’d been on the move since leaving the club and needed to rest—though they had and they did—but because he could tell they were being followed and he didn’t want to lead his shadow to Tinker Bell.

      He doubted the Hunters were after him. Apparently, during Kane’s forced stay in hell, a battle had been waged in the skies, Hunters against Lords, Titans against Sent Ones.

      The Lords and Sent Ones had won, utterly destroying the Hunters and severely weakening the Titans.

      Kane gathered stones, twigs and dried leaves to build a fire. He cared little about warmth. He wanted the one following him to see the smoke and assume he was relaxed, unprepared. Was the culprit immortal? If so, what race? And why was he after Kane?

      Doesn’t matter. He withdrew a dagger and sharpened it against one of the stones he’d set aside. His reflection caught on the silver metal, and firelight illuminated the image. The red in his eyes had intensified.

      Disaster had grown stronger, Kane far weaker. Disgusted, he set the weapon away.

      “You know we’ve got a female Phoenix on our tail, right?” William asked.

      A Phoenix? He’d never messed with the fire-happy race. “I do. Of course I do.” Now. “How did you know?”

      “I can smell her. How else?”

      “Right.”

      “The plan?”

      “To wait.”

      “And slaughter her on our own turf,” William said with a nod, black hair shagging around his supermodel face—or whatever he insisted on calling that ugly mug. “I like it. Simple, yet elegant.” He eased onto the only rock in front of the fire he hadn’t helped build, and dug through his backpack. He withdrew a pistachio nutrition bar he’d stolen from Kane, tore off the wrapper—and ate every bite, never offering Kane a taste.

      Typical.

      “That was good. You should have brought one.” William brushed his hands together. He wore a T-shirt that read I’m a Jenius, and that pretty much encapsulated the male’s entire personality. Silly, unconcerned, irreverent. Misleading.

      Kane dug through his own pack. He withdrew three daggers, two Sigs and the parts to his long-range rifle. What could a female Phoenix want with him? He knew the race lived for the enslavement of others. He knew they were nearing extinction, many having met their final end. Like cats with nine lives. He knew they were bloodthirsty and war-hungry … but they usually only picked battles they could win.

      So confident. Disaster chuckled with evil glee. So wrong.

      Kane ignored him. He’d tried engaging the fiend, snapping retorts, issuing threats, but look where that had gotten him. Now, he wasn’t going to waste his time or energy. And why should he? This was a full-on case of dead demon talking.

      Suddenly sparks flew from the fire, shooting out white-hot streams in every direction. Grass sizzled, and black smoke billowed. Heat licked over Kane’s pants, blistering his calves.

      William scrambled around, patting out the flames. “You’re a menace. You know that, right? Everywhere we go, something terrible happens.”

      “I know.” And the worst was yet to come. “To your knowledge, have the Moirai ever had a wrong prediction?”

      “Oh, yes,” William said. “Definitely.”

      Hope bloomed. “When?” He fit the rifle’s barrel on top of the frame, and the scope on top of that. He inserted the screws and gently tightened. “How?”

      “When—too many times to count. How—free will. Our choices dictate our future, nothing else.”

      Intelligent words from a Jenius. Go figure. “They think I’m destined to marry the keeper of Irresponsibility.”

      “So do it. Hunt her down and marry her.”

      William made it sound so easy. Just snap his fingers, and boom. Done. Only one little problem. He had yet to meet the keeper of Irresponsibility.

      “I’m not sentencing a woman to an eternity with me.” He attached the bipod and rested the entire weapon on a thick stump.

      “What about White?” William grumbled. “I happen to think you’ll end up with her, whether I like it or not.”

      White was William’s only daughter, and, if Kane had to take a guess, one of the reasons William had followed him out here. William wanted Kane to stay away from the girl.

      “I know you do,” he said. “What I don’t know is why.”

      “Simple. I was once told her husband would cause an apocalypse.”

      “By the Moirai?”

      “One of the Moirai. I slept with Klotho. And both of her sisters.”

      “I so did not need to hear that. Dude, they’re ancient.”

      “They weren’t at the time,” William said with his classic wanton grin.

      “Whatever. What about your whole free-will over fate spiel?”

      “I believe you’ll choose her.”

      “I hate her.” He remembered how, in hell, she had stood over his bound and mutilated form. Silent. Uncaring. Then, she’d left him to his suffering.

      Actually, hate was too soft a word for what he felt for her.

      “Maybe I’ll just avoid both women,” he added, “and save myself the trouble.”

      “You? Avoid trouble? Ha!”

      He gnashed his molars. “I can try. And what will you do if White and I do end up together, huh? You don’t think I’m good enough for her.”

      “I certainly